Despite the recent interest in adopting HTML5's video tag, there is still one major problem: there is no mandated standard video codec for the video tag. The two main contestants are the proprietary and patended h264, and the open and free Theora. In a comment on an LWN.net article about this problematic situation, LWN reader Trelane posted an email exchange he had with MPEG-LA, which should further cement Theora as the obvious choice.

"Ok, there may be some problems with free software and there have been completely free Linux distributions without an MP3 codec, but this hasn't been a real problem because it's so easy to install one on Linux. After all, there are free and open-source MP3 codecs, because MP3 isn't patented in countries without software patents. And there are free and open-source h.264 codecs, too.

The most popular linux does not have mp3 support: Ubuntu "

Not install by default, but the first time you attempt to play an mp3 file it will gladly install it for you.